


The Cost of Doing Business

by RighteousNerd



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post Avengers, Pre Agents of SHIELD, discussions about death and resurrection, minor implied philinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2018-04-23 05:12:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4864343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RighteousNerd/pseuds/RighteousNerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick Fury and Lian May discuss TAHITI and it's implications.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cost of Doing Business

The early morning air was crisp. The rising sun revealed the blanket of dew that had settled in the grass during the night. Birds chirped. It was idyllic. A peaceful country landscape viewed from the porch of a peaceful country home. To Nick Fury it was unsettling, and in no way jived with the life he knew. Give him the glass and cement of the Triskellion. Grey walls and a birds eye view. Give him the bustle of agents and the hum of a hellicarrier. Give him intrigue and danger; keeping his eye open while he slept - not that he does much of that lately - and always, always, keeping that eye on the big picture. He didn’t want to feel calm. He wanted action. He wanted to move. Calm was unnatural. It prickled and pushed in at him. Calm hurt.

It was an illusion of course. It was peaceful here, but it was not a natural peace, rather an engineered one. Great pains had been taken to ensure both the security and the anonymity of the house’s sole occupant. Tree cover from the air, unfettered view of all entry points, ground sensors, and Nick wasn’t certain but he would bet cash money that there was some kind of laser grid in the outlying woods. Few places were securer. His own offices at the Triskellion. The Fridge. The White House, maybe. 

Others may have been fooled, but Nick wasn’t. This was a hub of international intrigue: Lian May’s retirement home. Yes, the Lian May. There was a joke that Nick had heard time and time again as a junior agent: Old spies never retired, they just stopped keeping office hours. Lian May’s retirement was a retirement in the sense that she had stopped coming in to the office, much preferring to conduct her business from the fortress-like safety of her own home. Nick had a suspicion that office hours had only ever slowed her down anyway.

Both high ranking within their own organizations, Director Fury and Secretary May had been aiding and confounding each other in turn for years. Now here he was waiting on her porch at an ungodly hour, sipping some very strong tea and hoping like hell he had played his cards right. 

He’d come to collect her daughter, which was in all honesty the sort of ballsy move that he paid other people to take these days. Didn’t matter, this time it had to be him. No one could ask this of the Agent May but him. And ask he had, his plan outlined carefully, all possible outcomes, both positive and negative, clearly stated. He wouldn’t offer her blind hope, not now, when two clear eyes were needed to see it through. So he’d told her what he meant to do and asked her along, offering her a miracle at a price he hoped they wouldn’t have to pay.

Part of him was glad that Agent May was giving it thought. It was a hard thing he had asked of her. Keeping hard truths and spying on friends were sometimes part of the job, but this was so far beyond their normal life or death scenarios. This would either be a miracle or an abomination, and either way it would wear the face of the man she loved. Fury would give her time. Some soul searching was necessary, and the younger woman had gone to the one place where she knew she could lay that part of herself bare: her mother’s house. 

So here he was, Lian May’s home, ready to hear the verdict. Except the younger May wasn’t here. Nick was met at the door and shuffled into a porch chair. There was a chill in the air, but not a biting one. Nothing he couldn't defend against with coat pulled tight and a warm mug of tea. He didn’t ask to go in, there was no business to conduct there, and no purpose that wouldn't see itself through from where he sat.

Across from him, sat the lady of the house. Calm and poised as ever, equally formidable in the field or sipping tea on her front porch. Their conversation had been sparse, and Nick had the uneasy feeling of being sized up. Not the first time in his life, but unnerving none the less. 

“I suppose she read you in?” He asked, wanting to do something, say something, even if its was just to break the silence.

“It was a big decision,” she agrees. It was a big decision; the type of decision that you have to make and then keep making. A choice to be committed to over and over. 

“The fact that you have neither the clearance or even belong to the same agency didn’t stop either of you.”

“It never has before.” 

“And what did you tell her?”

“What I always tell her: to be safe.”

“You disapprove?”

“I don’t think its for me to say,” Lian replies, her eyes watching the road, waiting for Melinda. “It’s a new world, Director. One filled with gods and monsters.”

“It is a new world. With new threats - the kind we can’t even imagine let alone prepare for. We need to be ready.” It’s the same tired crap he’s been telling himself over and over, and it sounds more and more desperate each time.

“And will this do that? Make us ready?” She pauses, and he wonders just how much she’ll push. “Director, try and play god and you'll become the monster.”

“So you do disapprove.” She doesn’t answer, but her silence really is answer enough. Nick knows that silence. He’s well versed in it. “What would you do in my place?” 

“Probably the same.” 

Nick has no doubt. There are other things - rumors. Hard choices. Daring acts. A formidable reputation well earned. He knows what it’s taken to get to the top. “Then how can you condemn me for it?”

“As a mother,” she says, and in this moment she is as unquestionable and fierce as he’s ever seen her. “One whose daughter you would make complicit in this act.”

“She hasn't said yes.” It’s not the first moment Nick’s hoped Melinda will turn him down. It’s not the first moment that he’s hoped she will accept.

“She will,” Lian says. “What wouldn’t Melinda do for someone she loves?”

That’s the kicker, Nick thinks. Melinda does love Phil. Maybe even since the beginning when she had spent the better part of their academy years knocking Phil on his ass in hand to hand. As Phil’s S.O., Nick had watched them move together and against and known they’d had the makings of a true partnership. He’d been quick to assign them together after they’d graduated, keeping a watchful eye on the lingering touches and soft glances. Whether it had ever gone further than that, Nick had never been quite certain. All he knew was that there had been something there then and Nick was willing to bet Phil’s life that there was something there now.

“How could you do that to him?” Lian asks, surprising Nick out of his reverie. “That poor boy.”

Nick lets out a sharp bark of laughter. It rings hollow and dies quickly. “Phil’s almost fifty years old - he’s hardly a boy.”

“He was one of yours, Nick.” Lian counters. It’s the first time she’s ever called him by his first name and if she hadn’t already had his attention, she would have had it now. “Tell me you didn't see that boy that you pulled out of a bad situation all those years ago. Tell me that’s not what you saw while he was bleeding out.”

It’s exactly what Nick saw while Phil was bleeding out. It’s exactly what he sees every time he closes his eyes. That’s what she’s really wants to know - why all of this? Why Phil? Yes, the world needs saving and their best and only hope will lie with a team that’s not a quite a team yet. The world needs the Avengers. All of them, working together, and they can’t afford to lose anyone. He needs all his players in the game. He needs them out fighting the good fight against all odds. Resurrection would keep the Avengers fighting and the world spinning, it’s true. Another equal truth is that Nick depends on few, trusts even fewer, and to save one man he’s now set into motion a plan staggering in its scope. What she wants is that sliver of truth that bleeds into everything. It’s such a small thing and yet such a great weight upon him: Nick misses his friend.

“Your daughter isn't the only one who would do anything to bring him back,” Nick admits, and he feels neither better or worse for saying it. He almost thinks thats it, that she’s got what she wanted, but Lian surprises him again. 

“People assume this job hardens you. That it makes you cold,” She says, eye’s out on the road once more. “I’ve always found it to be the opposite. It only makes it easier to do horrible things for those we love.” 

Nick sighs, every one of his years feeling heavy inside of him. “For those we love or to those we love?” 

“If you’re lucky, it’ll be one or the other,” Lian says, turning to look at him. “It won’t end well, you know that right? Miracles always come at a price.”

He does know, but he appreciates the warning just the same. “I’ll try to keep it from costing Melinda.”

“She won’t let you,” Lian cautions. “Whatever it ends up costing him, it will cost her. But you knew that.”

Nick was counting on it. If he was going to do this, at least he would know they would be together. He had faith that Melinda and Phil could find a way to take care of each other. In the end, that was the deciding factor.

Down the road, Melinda jogged into view. Her pace was hard and determined, but even so, her movements were all power and control. She was running like she knew every bit of the road ahead of her, every bump and every wind. Maybe she did.

“For their sake, and for yours, I really hope you know what you’re doing?” Lian said, rising to her feet and crossing the porch to greet her daughter.

“Me too,” Nick whispered.


End file.
